If you post your listing videos on YouTube, here are some ways to improve them
Many real estate agents now use YouTube to market their listings for sale. Eric gives some advice on making better videos and virtual tours.
I'm not writing this to embarrass any particular individual. Learning how to market real estate is a continuous process. And we can all learn from one another, particularly on a site like ActiveRain where there are so many great resources available.
Nobody can't watch jittery, shaky video footage for very long without feeling like they've had way too much coffee. It's extremely distracting to view a video that is blurry and shaky. But I've noticed some in the real estate business uploading property videos to YouTube which are really hard to watch.
Remember that your goals are pretty basic when you use YouTube for real estate marketing. You want to give the viewer the feel of "being there", an idea of what it's like to enjoy the lake or patio or living area. Your goal is also to hold the viewer's attention throughout the video. If they just can't look any longer, they'll leave your video tour..game over!
Ever watched a small-town television anchorperson who's wearing a pinstripe or herringbone pattern in their clothing that seems to vibrate on the screen? To some viewers, it's as distracting and unpleasant to watch as fingernails on a chalkboard and it makes people change channels! The same thing could be said of shaky, blurry videos. They're completely worthless from a real estate marketing standpoint.
Some of the problems with real estate videos I've watched on YouTube include:
- Finger in front of the lens
- Jittery footage
- Camera pans too rapidly or zooms too rapidly
Too much motion, too fast, makes it look as if the photographer was in a big hurry to slap the video together. The marketing value of your video is zero if the video looks sloppy or hastily done.
Learn to pan and zoom slowly. One hypothetical rule of thumb would be to pan a 45-degree view in no less than fifteen seconds. Slower is better.
Another piece of excellent advice is to use a tripod and pan head.
There are plenty of good consumer-grade tripods on the market. Get something rugged and stiff. Lightweight tripods are often pretty worthless. A bubble level on the pan head is essential, especially if you're shooting videos of the horizon. An off-level tripod means your panorama will wind up taking a diagonal path by the time you're done panning. A good pan head with a smooth swivel action makes panning a lot easier and it pays off in the final result you'll achieve.
Don't "walk and shoot". It looks lousy, with the image bobbing up and down as you stride. If you have to move, slow down!
Don't shoot into the sun. Choose an overcast day or one with neutral shadows.
Use a decent HD video camera, like a Flip Mino HD. The iPhone just plain stinks when it comes to shooting video for the Web. It's okay for stills, but the video quality is pixelated and blurry or grainy in the real estate videos I've viewed. Another problem is the iPhone's narrow field. It's just not wide-angle enough for real estate videos. The iPhone format results in a narrow "keyhole" frame on YouTube.
Narration is fine, a better accompaniment to your video than cheesy background music, but unless the text of your narration appears in the video description, it's invisible to search engines.
No video at all is better than crappy-looking, amateurish video footage. And no client in their right mind will be impressed by a YouTube video that looks more like a bad Super-8 home movie from the 1960s.
DOES YOUR AGENT KNOW HOW TO USE A CAMERA? PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS ARE AN ESSENTIAL PART OF REAL ESTATE MARKETING!
PHONE OR TEXT MESSAGE BROKER ERIC KODNER AT 612.670.2539
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